Last work day (out of order)

This post is out of order. It should came before the last day Leaving Gutamala (Nov 21) post and after Food distribution (nov20) The Nov 20th was realy on the 19th Then the 20th would be Last Day at PachItulul.

This was our last day working in Pachitulul. We spent the day mixing and pouring concrete for the floor of the pileta. When completed the pileta will have 8 wash stations and a large common pool of fresh water.

Mixing concrete by hand. We just piled up the cement, gravel and sand and mixed it with shovel and hoes.

Jason adds the water to the mix

and we mix

to move the concrete to the pileta was bucket brigate style. Here Gil hands a bucket to A 4" slab about 10x10 feet. It was a lot of buckets



everyone got involved. Even the children were hauling baskets and wash tubs full of rocks for the banana pit and the floor of the pileta.

grab shot from Domingo´s patio where we put our stuff and took our breaks. Domingo is the Jefe of the village, but that didn´t stop him from pitching in every day. He hauled boulders out of the banana pit and was always there to help with anything we needed.

The completed baskets to give to the families of the village



Linda presents the baskets to the women of the village.

group shot of the women of the village. Along with the 20 lbs of beans, rice and corn in the big baskets, the small baskets contained bags of sugar, cooking oil, paper and pens for the children, toothbrushes, and many other things. The sadness is that in a country that can produce so much food there so many people suffering from malnutricion. This village was farming land right next to it until a few years ago. The owner of the land was renting the farmland to the village for next to nothing but lost it to the bank. The new owner came in and that was the end of it. All the land is now planted in avacodos for Hass and the village finds itself with a high chainlink fence topped with coils of barb wire surrounding it. Talk about paving paradice. Currently, Domingo is the only one in the village working for the finca owner, which I suspect leads to some interesting conflicts of loyalty being also the elected head of the community. Maybe several years from now when the avacodo trees are producing there will be more jobs for the young people of the village, but that is still several years off.

the floor is complete and we are flooding it to keep it from curing too fast. Domingo is in the center next to Jason

here we are with one wall of the pileta.

driving out of Pachitulul for the last time.

I´ll be here for another week and will try to cruise by Pachitulul before we leave the area on Thursday.

blogging away in Gutemala,
Roy

Leaving Guatemala

On the way home, at least for some.

Most of the group left today for Antigua, which is a beauitiful colonial city near Gutamala City and the airport. They will spend the night there and those heading back to Colorado will do so on Saturday morning. Laura and I headed in the other direction to visit a friend living in Santiago de Atitlan and we will return next weekend as will the Wood´s and the Humke´s.

Those heading back this Saturday are Jason Hays, Rick and Wendy Rico, and Christine Winey, so if you see them on Sunday ask them how they liked Guatemala.

No pictures today, but I´ll see if I can get back to Pachitulul before leaving Guatemala to report on the progress. The hope is to complete the project in two weeks.

Reporting from Gutemala,
Roy

Construction & Food distribution

I.m sending more pictures and not muich text because thekeyboard I,m using tonight has even less keys with visable letters than the ona last night and it´s sticky with coke or somthing.

Working on the pileta

The first wall is completed

Here we are putting the rebar together . The rebar will reinforces the concrete. I think Jason calculate that we made around 2,000 ties not counting our redoe´s. A tie is using a small length of wire to tie the crossing pieces if rebar together.

The rebar is tied and the basic plumbing is in

The banana pit at 3 meters deep.

These are pictures of us last night dividing up the food that was purchased from your donations. By the time we left you all had raised $2,500, most of which went to purchasung food for the 14 families in Pachetulul. Each family will recieve 20 lbs of rise, beans, and corn, plus sugar, cooking oil, and other things.

Driving out of Pachetulul at the end of the day

Thanks again,
Roy

Guatemala Day Off

Finally some pictures and that is good because I won't be able to write much. As an experinced two finger hunt and peck typist it´s hard for me to use this keyboard as most of the letters are worn off.

Today is Wednesday and we had our day off. We took a boat across the lake to Samtiago de Atitlan and then to Panajachel. The weather was beautiful. Eat your heart out those of you that did this trip last year in the pouring rain. It´s just gloriuos here. I vote that all work trips to Guatemala be done in the dry season.

Well finally, as promised here are some pictures.

This picture is from Sunday, our second full day. We toured Pampojila where our groups build stoves last year. Picture are our fearless organizer Luis (far right), Rosa, the woman that got this project going and acts as the community health advisor, and me. This was taken in area Noventa y Siete (97). Those of you that work this area last year will note that we are walking on a real live road not the muddy. trecherous trail you all remember. The road´s not quite finished as the major of San Lucus who got the mony to do the road has been temporairy (?) run out of office.


We took a tour of Felipe´s coffee plot. In this image you see Felipe at the far right, Luis center and Goyo on the left. Both Felipe and Goyo are engaged in sustainable agriculure and are officers in a small coffee growers assocaition that proctices organic, susainable techniques.


This is our first look at the project in Pachitulul. You can see the start of the foundation to the pileta. A pileta is a community wash staion.


We are hanging out in front of our posada Volcanes






Here are the kids we have been sponsoring through the San Lucas Tolimon Scholars program.



We are building the wall to the pieta.


The town turned out to help. Here are two guys from the pueblo hauling a rock out of the banana pit (see previous for discription of banana pit) It didn´t take too much digging before these guys realized we were in over our heads. (pun intented).


Even the kids jumped in to help.


At the weaver´s house on Tuesday evening.


Gots ta go..... I hear a glass of wine calling my name....

Roy

Building a Public Wash Station

Lake Atitlan

It´s Tuesday and we are into day two of our work at Pachetulu. We are helping to build a public wash station in a village of 14 families. Not only will this be a place for the village women to gather to wash clothing, but it will be a water supply for the pueblo. Currently the only water available is from the finca (plantation), which seems to becoming less reliable to the community. Also, a law has just been passed stating that nobody is allowed to wash in the lake. Lake Atitlan is suffering from algea due to run off from farms (primarily), sewage and the fact that it is the primary wash station for all the cities surronding the lake. Truth is, as long as the fincas use high powered chemical fertalizers it is going to be a growing problem.

The piping to a water tank, which is located on a hilltop owned by the Permaculter Institute, which is located in close proximity to the pueblo, the tank and piping to Pachetulu is in place. We are working on the actual washing stations and the system to teat the gray water watse. The gray water is being treated via a banana pit.

A banana pit is a hole 3 meters deep. The hole is hand dug along with hauling out huge rocks. (Pictures to come.) The bottom of the pit will be filled with sand then gravel and topped off with organic plant matter. The banana trees will be planted around the holes. Banana trees do three things very well. They filter out chemicals like phosphates which are killing the lake. They are hugely evaporative so they will suck out the water from the pit, and they produce bananas, which is a better by-product than I get from my septic system up in Colorado.

Got to go, dinner is on the table. I promise to send pictures soon

Roy in San Lucas Tolimon, Gutemala

Guatemala, Nov '09 from Roy

Uneventful leaving from Denver on Friday the 13th for Guatemala City. We arrived in the evening and stayed in the city rather than going directly to San Lucus Tolimo. Saturday morning we had a fantastic discussion with Karen. Karen Weisbart was with an international oganization called NISGU, locally called Acoguate, which provides international observation of events; specifically accompanying targeted people. Our group had spent several weeks reading and discussing Rigabertu Menchu´s book prior to coming and having Karen paint a picture of the current political situation in Guatemala was super informative.


We left Guatemala City and arrived in a DRY! San Lucas on Saturday afternoon. Those who came last year will understand our excitment, it was DRY! Filipe´s place is doing well and everyone is there. We spent Saturday afternoon walking around Pampojilla and saw several of the estufas (stoves) we built last year. Rosa is still Rosa. She met us and walked along,catching up on things.


On Sunday we met with Dennis Evans of San Lucus Tolimon Scholars and met the children we have been sponsoring in school. They are so wonderful. The kids talked about their favoraite classes and we took pictures. They are all off school now so they can pick coffee. School vacation is not a vacation for them. They all go to the fincas (large plantations) and earn a couple of dollars a day picking coffee beans. The boys were proud to say they could pick 100 to 150 pounds a day. Kids here can go to school for free through the sixth grade. After that they have to pay. Denis has been helping serious students go on to junior high and then senior high school. Currently, he is helping around five hundred students. We pay $200 a year to send a student to school. Most of these kids come from families where the parents have, at most, a third grade education, most are illiterate. Many families are living on 40 or 50 dollars a month during the non-harvest season and a lot of our students come from families with 12-13 children. It´s a phenominal story, what´s going on down here.


Got to go. I´ll send pictures as soon as I can...........


Roy McCutchen

I spent four days volunteering at ARNO (Animal Rescue of New Orleans) before the UCC group arrived, and, as usual, they are amazingly busy. The whole operation is run by volunteers, and the ones I worked with are amazingly committed to their cause.

It's incredibly tiring work and the time just seems to fly by -- there's always another dog to walk, or cages to clean or dishes and kitty litter pans to wash. I'd start at 7:30 in the morning and when I next looked at my watch it'd would be after 5 at night.It was tough work, but every action you take feels like you doing something tangible to help the life of one of the animals.

I work side-by-side with one of their full-time regular volunteers, Jeff, and after four days, we were working together with efficiency and had built up a camaraderie that usually takes months to create. I find this happens anytime I volunteer -- people just naturally bond as they work.

The same has been true with the rest of the UCC group, now that they've arrived. The four others that I'm working on are amazingly hard working and within minutes we were joking with each other and working together as a natural team. I've been wholly impressed with how John, John, Dave and Roy have jumped into some amazingly technical and large-scale work rebuilding the foundation of the house, and myself have just been sticking with simpler tasks like running wires and cutting boards for the subfloor.

Today we all were able to share in a great event -- we were able to watch as the 210th famliy served by the St Bernard Project came home. They had a small ribbon cutting ceremony and we were able to walk through the house just before the family moved their furniture in. I found it very moving as it brought to life the changes were are bringing to the area.

It has been amazing to me to see the differences in the neighborhood in the short year since we were last here -- there are many, many more volunteers helping St Bernard Project, businesses are starting to come back, many of the derelict houses have been removed by the parish, and more and more houses are appearing, even in the Lower 9th Ward.

The scope of the problem is still humbling, but it is exciting to see change coming to the area, bit by bit. I am attaching a picture of our team with Liz McCartney, one of the founders of St Bernard Project and the winner of the 2008 CNN Hero of the Year Award.

-Jim Arnow

New Pics from New Orleans

Carl & Roy

Lee

Dear First Congregational Members!

This is one of the correspondents here in New Orleans that you commissioned at the worship service on April 26. We have been here from Saturday till today and have 4 more days to go. We are engaging the culture, the people, the stories, and each other. Your blessings on us have yielded even more blessings on our journey.

On Saturday a group of us went to the usual Kenner’s Seafood Restaurant which is near the airport. They greeted us with open arms for we have been going there since we started coming to New Orleans to help in the rebuilding. That is 7 times. In fact, one of us had on the Kenner Seafood Hat! It was tasty as usual and was immersion into the New Orleans culinary experience. The crawfish, catfish, fried eggplant, broiled oysters, and okra.

On Sunday we went to church, since this were we are staying, the St. Matthew’s UCC. We were almost enough to double the size of the congregation although one of us joined the choir which made the men’s section 3! We missed you all.

After church it was time for the full day at the New Orleans Jazz Fest. It was an overcast day with an abundance of musicians. All of us appreciated the variety. Highlights included the Los Lobos, Ellis Marsalis, Neil Young, a trumpeter named Jeremy Watkins who called one of his students who is 11 years old onto the stage and then loaned his own trumpet so the young man could play. The kid wailed on it. Brought the hundreds of people who were there to their feet. The slew of music settings were almost as diverse as the kiosks of food. The sweet potato pone was among the best.

Sunday night two groups went down to the French Quarter and enjoyed more music and the New Orleans cuisine. One of the groups went on the St Charles streetcar to the French Quarter.

When we arrived to the orientation for our first work day on Monday, we were ushered into a large room in the new St. Bernard Project building. There were at least 110 people there. 30 or so were Canadians. We heard the story of Frank White again, the man who stood on the roof of a bank with another couple hundred people for 6 days!!!! Until the Canadian Royal Mounted Police arrived in boats to rescue them. Frank, a Vet, and fireman, and a loyal American was profoundly upset that it took the U.S. team to arrive on the 7th day to help! It has taken years to build up trust in those who were deeply disappointed for the response to Katrina and the following rebuilding.

Then off to the work sites on Monday. We split into three groups to work in three different houses. Each group has different stories. However, the same theme is heard over and over. “Thank you for coming to help and thank you for not forgetting us.”

Especially as we drove that afternoon through the Lower Nine (where the Make It Right program sponsored by Brad Pitt has built creative, imaginative buildings) we could still the major devastation in the area. As we saw in St. Bernard Parish where we are working, there are now very few homes that are not yet mucked out, no huge piles of all the possessions of the home on the street, and although of the 27,000 homes that were totally flooded, barely half of them are being inhabited. This is almost 4 years since Katrina. St. Bernard Project with whom we are working, has rebuilt 207 homes to date. They are working on 30 of them right now. Since the CNN coverage and the Hero of the Year Award presentation to Liz McCartney one of the directors of St. Bernard Project there has been much more volunteer help and therefore more Americorps and staff have been hired.

There are more stories as you would imagine. It is still so very powerful to be here and see the work that has been done, AND the work that is yet to be done. Zack, the other director, indicated that it will be at least another 5 years before the work load for rebuilding will see the light at the end.

We have had some Cajun catfish for dinner the other night, prepared by one of our cooking crews using spices from Boulder! Like taking coals to Newcastle.

This is the first installment.

There are some photos, just of some of the group and our tour and our work!

Grace and peace,
Alan

Jean

Carl

Carl and Alan hard at work!